We have made it to Vila Nova de Foz Coa!!!

Ola!  

One of our principal objectives in putting together this trip was visiting the Museu and three locations of ancient rock carvings here in Foz Coa. And, unlike anything we have yet seen in France or Spain, these three locations are all actually outside – and they have survived these past 23,000 years (give or take a century or so…) of weather and everything else going on.  (In fact, there are some etchings that are actually now underwater as a result of the damming on the Douro River.  We won’t see those this trip.)

I think these may have been almond trees in bloom

Old grape vines, very tall!

You can begin to see some of the terraces at the bottom

The Douro river!

Next time want to take a boat down this!

Terraces, olive and almond trees!

Now that's definitely green...

These terraces seem to go on forever!

Our Portuguese cheese "before"

Wonderful vegetable soup!

Definitely a happy camper!

This is the serving for ONE person!

Lovely Main Street in town!

Caught me with my Magnum Classic!

Beautiful building on the town square

Up this morning about 7, and down to breakfast about 8 am.  There was yet another tour group gathering itself together, but we were able to get everything we wanted to eat with no problems at all.  (Unless you can call almost tripping over luggage that spread from one end of the hotel lobby to the other a problem…)  At any rate, there were gone by 8:30 am leaving a vast amount of silence behind them.  Yeah!!

Repacked up everything and down to hotel lobby by 8:45 am, and we were loading up the car by 9 am. It wasn’t difficult at all getting out of town.  We knew which way the river was from our hotel, and we headed in the opposite direction! Easy peasy!  As it turns out, we also totally missed the rush hour traffic heading into Porto, which was great!

Timing-wise, one can get from Porto to Foz Coa in about 2 hours and a little bit on the toll road. However, it’s a little over 4½ hours if you stick to the surface roads, which is what we did.  And truly, honestly, one of the most beautiful drives either of us can ever remember!  Portugal is truly a stunning country, and their port-growing region of the Douro is spectacular.  Sometimes it felt like we were at the top of the world, and liable to go either one way or the other down precipitous cliffs – there was definitely a lack of safety guardrails in the area, that’s for sure!  We definitely took our time, and as we passed terrace after terrace, and producer after producer, it just kept getting better!  

Hundreds if not thousands of years ago, when grapes were first being cultivated, they were planted on hand-made “terraces” so that the grapes could receive optimum sun and rain. The terraces were all made by hand, using schist (slate-like) slabs that held up each terrace.  There was ground soil left under the schist plates, and those areas became quite literally small reservoirs to hold water for the grapes. In this way, the roots of the grapes were encouraged to grow deeply to get to the water, and now many of the roots are over 30 feet long.  These are some hardy grapes!  (Especially as the weather in the Douro valley can range from freezing with snow to over 100˚F!)

These terraces are incredible to view, but what makes them even more special is that almost 100% of all the work done in the Douro valley has to be done by hand.  In the first place, there is no room at all on the terraces for machines to work, so harvesting and processing the grapes is a very timeworn tradition here requiring a great deal of skill.  In fact, as most machinery will crush the grape seeds themselves, thereby adding a sour note to the wine, most of the grapes picked and crushed in the Douro valley are done by hand – and foot!  (I keep thinking of Lucy when she and Ethel decided to give grape stomping a try … apparently that still happens here!) 

(Oh, to come back in September…)

At any rate, the entire area is truly lovely, and our route, N222 followed the Douro River along for probably 40 or 50 km or so.  Eventually we headed away from the Douro and started going southeast, again over the mountains, to find Vila Nova de Foz Coa (abbreviated on the road signs as V.N. de Foz Coa, just in case you were wondering!)

Here in V.N. there is a lovely museum that contains information on the rock carvings and etchings, as well as a restaurant, that we’d like to try. We got here about 2 pm and were able to find our small hotel (7 rooms), Casa Vermelha (RED!) with no problems.  It is VERY red!  We were met by a very lovely and giggly young lady who knows very little English (which just about matches up with our Portuguese!) who checked us in and showed us upstairs to our room.  It is huge and in a corner, so we have three large windows looking out as well as a very large bathroom with another window.  It is definitely on the frigid side right now, but R has just turned on the modern HVAC unit, and things seem to be improving immediately!

Casa Vermelha struck me as being something like my grandparents’ big house when I was growing up in Michigan.  The ceilings are REALLY high, and the old but in very good repair furniture is rather dark with some lovely stenciling.  There is a stunning pool that looks like it would be great in summer, but right about now, I think we’ll give that a pass!  We brought in all of our stuff, and there is even an extra baby’s cot that we are using for a suitcase rack, so plenty of room.  Then, as it was by now a bit after 2:30 pm, we headed into town to see if there was any chance of getting any lunch.  We are STARVING!

As Casa Vermelha is on the main business street in town, we decided to explore by walking.  I was thinking that by the time we were ready, that everything in town would be closed for lunch, even if they had been open, but figured we could find a market and possibly get snacks until a suitable dinner hour arrived.  Our first stop was just down the street at the local Tourist Information office, where we were able to get good maps of the area, as well as a few other places to see when we’re not investigating etchings and carvings. 

The restaurant we saw on TripAdvisor was just down the block, so we found it – only to find that they were, of course, now closed!  (We made a reservation for 7 pm tonight, but not sure now if we’ll even need it!)  Back to the main street, and past a hardware store, a shoe store, a clothing store and a few other odds and ends, until we hit Restaurante a Marisqueira (which, according to TripAdvisor, was closed on Thursday) … but it wasn’t, and in we went, and they were happy to serve us lunch!!  Yippee!!

We started with bottles of sparkling water, and the nice man then put down a small, Portuguese cheese ball in front of us, with bread. Needless to say, that didn’t last long! Then, with his help, we selected food – both of us (Robert was definitely a copycat here!) started with some lovely vegetable soup, and then followed that up with a BIG plate of grilled chicken served with rice AND with the best French fries either of us has ever had, and then a serving of broccoli.  Wow!

To say that everything was great is an understatement.  We ate just about everything that had been put before us, and the chicken was truly sublime!  WHAT do they do to chickens in the U.S. to make them so tasteless?  This was incredible!  As were the French fries, and while those all disappeared, the rice was pretty much left on our plates.  We washed all this down with a bottle of “green” wine, which Robert discovered yesterday and says he may never return to red wine again.  But to continue … this huge feast was really wonderful, and – ready for this?  All in, including cheese, water and wine, the bill game to 30.40 €.  Incredible!

I do have to admit that what I really wanted for desert was a Magnum Classic, which I was able to find at a very cute little shop on the stroll back to the Casa.  We sat on a bench and enjoyed the view and the people watching for a few minutes before I finished myMagnum and we headed back to the Casa. 

Robert had wondered if we wanted to go to the Museum this afternoon, but I thought not, especially after a bottle of wine, so we may be in for the night.  Just depends on how hungry we get or how guilty we feel about reserving down the street!  We will definitely go back to A Marisqueira again before we left Foz Coa, that’s for sure!  It is definitely a keeper!!   

It is now almost 5 pm and R is napping, and I hope to be joining him soon!  We have internet here on our room at the Casa, but I’m not sure if the signal is very strong.  I may have problems posting photos or even the blog, so will just have to play it by ear.  At any rate, if I do have problems, I will get a message out to Katy Zappala and ask if she will send a note to everyone for us.  Then, we will definitely be back on-line on Sunday, when we hit our posh relais & chateaux hotel in Santiago de Compostela, when we’re back in Spain!

So, from Vila Nova de Foz Coa, lots of love for now,

m

xxx